


Nobody knows me as well as you do

by snugglesformuggles



Series: Quarantine au [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Asthma Attacks, Disagreements, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Movie Nights, SO MUCH FLUFF, Team Bonding, chronic conditions, latent affects from diseases, quarantine au sequel, self-sacrificing paladins, some sexual situations, talk about suicide, we'll see where this goes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:48:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24450853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snugglesformuggles/pseuds/snugglesformuggles
Summary: Keith and Lance are together and are trying to get through it all without falling apart
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Series: Quarantine au [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1765960
Comments: 15
Kudos: 109





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> These are just some scenes from the future after the events of Riveon and we see them dating and dealing with their issues together. It won't be chronological, but it will be easy to follow along, I promise.

“Asshole! Why do you keep doing this shit? It’s like you don’t care about yourself at all!” Keith yelled at his boyfriend on the bridge.

“I had to get you out of there! I wasn’t about to leave you to Lotor’s generals!” Lance screamed back. “They’re crazy and super dangerous!”

Keith growled, digging a finger into Lance’s chest in accusation. “I know that and I can take care of myself! I could’ve handled it! I don’t need you coddling me like a child!”

Lance scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Yeah right, that’s rich coming from you. I did fine getting out, didn’t I?”

“And you almost didn’t! If Shiro hadn’t been-,”

Shiro sighed, grabbing them both and backing them up. “Enough! You know I thought you’d bicker less being together. But, now you’re just fighting about sacrificing yourselves constantly.”

Hunk shook his head from his seat. “Honestly we’re all sick of both of you doing that.”

“I concur,” Pidge piped up. She walked up to both of them, angrily. “It’s getting old. And I’m genuinely losing sleep over you two.”

They both glanced at each other, sighing guiltily. Lance knew they were getting bad at that, but coming from Pidge always hurt worse than anything else.

“I-ugh, okay y’all are right. I’m sorry,” he said, pouting.

Keith looked at him. “Yeah, uh. Me too.”

Lance reached out a hand to his boyfriend. “Why don’t we do some team bonding? Movie night?”

Allura sighed, relieved. “Yes, I think that’s a marvelous idea. Lotor has been a headache for so long that none of us have had a proper relaxing night. Lounge area in one varga and everyone is required pajamas.”

Lance grinned at the princess, saluting her. “Yes, sir!”

He wrapped a hand around Keith’s waist. “Let’s go talk, hm?”

Keith grumbled. “Yeah. Sounds…yeah.”

They walked down the corridor and even though they were embracing, there was still some tension from Keith. Lance understood what he was saying, sure. But, he just couldn’t help it. He was protective of his boyfriend, sue him.

They reached their room, which used to be Lance’s room. In the last few months of them dating, they just ended up moving in altogether into his room. They moved about, changing into their pajamas silently.

Lance sighed, breaking the tension. “Okay, I know I messed up. I’m sorry.”

Keith didn’t say anything at first, just stopped his actions. He turned, a sour look on his face.

“I’m not mad because you, yet again, tried to sacrifice yourself. I almost expect it, at this point. What I’m mad about is that you obviously haven’t gotten over seeing me as some sick boyfriend you need to protect,” he said.

Lance blinked and then frowned. “I don’t see you like that! I know you’re not sick anymore. And I know-I know you’re capable.”

Keith didn’t seem convinced. “All these times, you just end up trying to keep me out of harm’s way. And not to mention where you bother me constantly about my asthma.”

Lance felt guilty, as he knew Keith had a point. “I just, look seeing you that sick back then really scared me! And then your asthma attack…Keith, it just keeps happening.”

Keith sighed, grabbing Lance’s hand and bringing him to sit with him on the bed. “Lance, I love you. And I don’t…mind you being protective. On occasion. But, you need to trust me more.”

Lance squeezed his hand. “I do trust you! But, you’re just reckless and you don’t know your own limits. And it…makes me nervous sometimes. I worry that you don’t know when to quit.”

Keith nodded. “I get that. And I’m not saying I’m perfect, either. But, the way you treat me, it’s like you expect me to break someday. And I’m not!”

Lance bit his lip, then cupped Keith’s cheek. “Oh, _mi alma,_ I know. And I’m sorry. I don’t mean to. I just-I know you so well that I see you overdoing it and it freaks me out.”

Keith turned his head and kissed Lance’s palm. “I’m sorry for that, too. How about we promise to work on that?”

Lance nodded, kissing Keith’s nose in apology. “Yeah. I promise.”

They finished changing into their pajamas and were much more loving when they joined the rest of the team in the lounge area. Hunk had made the usual movie night snacks, including space popcorn. It was made with some alien product that acted similar to popcorn and just slightly tasted like pears.

Pidge laid on her back against Hunk’s chest on the sofa and typed away on her laptop. Shiro and Allura sat together on the other side. She sat with her back to Shiro as he brushed out her hair. They all were very cozy with each other.

Lance smiled, leading Keith around to sit in the middle of the sofa. Keith curled up against Lance and he wrapped an arm around Keith’s shoulders.

Hunk sighed with relief. “So you guys aren’t mad at each other anymore?”

Keith shrugged. “Eh, I’m always kind of mad at him.”

Lance gasped, affronted. “Babe!”

He only chuckled, snuggling closer. “But, this time what he did was still sweet in a way. So, no I’m not mad anymore.”

Lance pouted. “Come on, sweetheart just lead with that, will you?”

Allura giggled. “You both are so funny, sometimes.”

Shiro shook his head. “So dramatic.”

Lance gestured his hand. “Whatever, you assholes. What are we watching?”

Allura made an excited noise. “Oh, we should watch that really cute one! My favorite from when I was a child! Coran translated it just a few weeks ago into Earth English!”

The man in question came in, with piles of bedding and pillows for the occasion. He grinned and passed them around.

“Sorry I’m late, everyone. I’m ready for the Earth movie night ritual!” he exclaimed, vaulting over the back of the couch and settling between Keith and Shiro.

“Alright I’m firing it up. What’s it called, princess?” Pidge asked from her very comfy space against Hunk’s chest.

“I believe translated to English it is called The Flowering Pond,” she said. “It’s so sweet.”

Pidge nodded, typing a few times. The projector spun and shown on the wall. Lance took a comforter from the pile and snuggled it around both him and Keith.

“This reminds me of those nights on Riveon,” Lance said, quietly. “When I was pining so hard and freaked out when you fell asleep on my shoulder.”

Keith snorted. “What about those times I pretended to be asleep so that you wouldn’t know I woke up to us spooning?”

Lance whipped his head around. “What? You were pretending? Babe, I freaked out so hard!”

Shiro chuckled. “That’s such a Keith thing to do.”

Keith glared at his brother. “Listen, everything was still new and I had no clue what to do.”

Hunk snorted. “I’m sure Lance had no clue either. You aren’t at all like the people Lance has dated before. Not to mention in the middle of that whole plague thing, too.”

“Hey, man! Way to sell me out!” Lance said, kicking his best friend.

Keith cocked his head in curiosity. “What kind of people did Lance date before?”

Hunk rolled his eyes. “Mostly it was just a bunch of first dates that ended in disaster. He flirts like no tomorrow, but as soon as he actually got dates, he got super nervous and then the other person wasn’t into it.”

Lance groaned, blushing in embarrassment. “Come on, man!”

Keith hummed, turning a sly look on Lance. “Really? Is that what people call ‘all bark and no bite’?”

Lance gasped. “Betrayed by my own boyfriend. I can’t believe this.”

Hunk belly laughed so hard that Pidge bounced against his chest. She started laughing, too.

“Oh yeah, that’s Lance to a tee. The first time he met me he actually flirted with me,” Hunk said, laughing more at the memory. “I think the line was something like ‘a big, brown beauty of a human being’.”

Lance cringed and hid under the comforter as the team just laughed harder. “Guys, stop making fun of me!”

Keith shrugged. “Well, it’s not like he’s wrong.”

Hunk gasped, grinning wide. “Aw, Keith! That’s so sweet!”

“Oh, what from Keith it’s sweet and from me it’s funny?” Lance said, affronted. “Rude. Just plain rude.”

Keith kissed his cheek and just chuckled. “I like your lines.”

Lance pouted. “Really?”

He just nodded and kissed him again.

“Well, then that’s all that matters. You’re the one I care about, anyway,” Lance said, grinning at him and kissing his temple.

Pidge made a retching noise. “I swear, this is almost worse than you two bickering all the time.”

The movie night wore on and at some point, everyone nodded off, one after another. It was a huge nest of comforters and bodies at the end. Lance was so glad to have found his space family like this.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A day at the markets take a turn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got the idea of this from Double Trouble from She-Ra

The marketplace was teeming with aliens of all kinds. Keith was keeping a very careful and protective arm around Lance’s waist to keep from him slipping away into the crowds.

“Hey, _mi alma,_ what if I got you a present, hm?” Lance asked, grinning at him wide. “It’s almost six months since we got together.”

Keith furrowed his brows. “But, I don’t really want anything. I’ve got everything I need.”

Lance rolled his eyes. “There must be something you want. Maybe some more drawing supplies?”

Keith hummed, considering. “I don’t know. The alien pens and stuff like never run out of ink or anything. Whatever you want to get, I’ll be happy.”

Lance smiled. “Okay, great. But, I need to get it while you’re not looking. So, let’s split up and meet back at the pole right there at the center in half a varga, alright?”

Keith looked at the large pole in the middle of the marketplace, where a lot of the markets surrounded around in a circle and then spread out in arms by different alleys.

He nodded at Lance, pecking him on the lips. “Alright, be careful.”

Lance was flitting to all the stalls he could, asking about what was selling. None of them were anything he wanted.

“This is a genuine seeing glass. If you look into it while looking at the stars, they will tell you your future!” the lady said, a cunning gleam to her eye.

Lance scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Yeah right. There are plenty of you on Earth and even they were better at scamming.”

She squawked in offense and he moved on. He stopped in time to notice a glowing dagger on a table. It shifted from purple hues, with a sparkling crystal hilt. It was gorgeous. He was drawn to it and the man behind the stall smiled, genuine.

“You’ve got a good eye, young man,” he said, in a deep resounding voice. The alien was humanoid and only shown himself to be alien by the floating hair around his head that looked as though it were tendrils in water.

Lance approached cautiously. “What makes it glow?”

The man nodded. “It’s a certain metal combined with a naturally occurring crystal form that keeps the sunlight stored and reflects it back. Looks really pretty, doesn’t it?”

Lance smiled, nodding. “Really cool. How much?”

The man looked him up and down. “You look familiar…have I seen you before?”

Lance shrugged. “I’m a paladin of Voltron, if that’s what you mean?”

His eyes widened in surprise, but grinned wide. “Voltron? Really? Voltron saved my whole system from the galra! Here, take it. On the house.”

Lance blinked. “What? Seriously? No, I couldn’t do that, it looks expensive.”

He shook his head, offering it in his hand. “Take it, as thanks. You saved my people. That includes my entire family. In my customs, that means you’re family, too.”

Lance grinned, blushing a little. “Oh, well. Okay, if you say so.”

He took the dagger, brandishing it in the light. He thanked the man again and headed off to meet Keith at the pole, then he noticed a presence behind him. He turned to look, but he couldn’t see any suspicious characters.

He frowned and continued on, more cautious. He still felt as though someone was following him, an eye on the back of his head. He moved through the crowds expertly, trying to lose the person. The person seemed to keep up and Lance decided to make a run for it and turned down another alley at random.

He lost the presence after some time and he leaned against a wall, breathing in and out hard from the run. He didn’t know where he was, but at least he was far from that person. He breathed out one more time, turning back in the way he came to try and find his way back, stopping when he came face to face with a small alien child.

Lance stopped, blinking at the kid. He noted that the child looked scared and was shaking, so he knelt, offering the kid a hand.

“Hey, are you okay? Are you lost?” he asked the child.

The child blinked up at him. The body was small and green, with one large eye in the middle of the forehead. They looked at his hand, then took it in his own.

“Hero? Of Voltron?” the child croaked out.

Lance nodded, smiling kindly. “Yeah, I’m a paladin of Voltron. I can help.”

The child then suddenly grinned and tightened the hold on his hand so hard that Lance flinched.

“Good,” the child said, but the voice had changed. It modulated strangely like it was flitting through a thousand different voices at once.

Lance tried to scramble back in shock, but the hold was strong on his arm. The alien grew, changing its form instantly into a new one. The new form was a familiar one to him.

“Oh, shit.”

Keith was really excited. While Lance went off to get him a present, Keith decided to get one of his own for Lance. This was a crystal beaded necklace that was an ocean blue. It reminded Keith of Lance’s eyes.

He reached the pole and fingered the necklace in his pocket, nervously. He’d given Lance quite a few gifts in drawings before, but this is the first gift he had bought for him. Keith got to the pole earlier than Lance had said, so he waited.

And he waited.

A full varga passed and he was getting antsy. He anxiously looked around the markets. He didn’t see his boyfriend anywhere. What if something happened to him?

Keith gritted his teeth. He was such an idiot to leave Lance alone in the middle of all this. He was about to move to look for Lance, when he felt a presence behind him. He whipped around.

“Hey there, lover,” Lance purred.

He came forward and wrapped Keith up in his arms. Keith blinked in surprise.

“Oh, uh, Lance. Everything okay?” he asked.

Lance smirked. “Oh, come on, Keith. You know I’m horrible at staying focused.”

Keith frowned. “Even then, you shouldn’t get so distracted in a place like this. Anyone could be lurking around.”

Lance rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Always the pragmatist, huh?”

Keith chuckled. “Can’t help it. So, did you buy anything?”

He shook his head. “Couldn’t find anything I wanted. But, if you wanted to, we could make up for it down one of those alleys?”

Lance’s eyes danced with innuendo and suggestion and he smiled.

Keith smirked. “Oh, I never thought you’d ask.”

He led Lance through the crowds and down one of the alleys, he backed Lance against a wall. Keith stroked Lance’s neck and cheek, hiking a knee between Lance’s legs and sensually smiling at him.

“Oh, look at that. So bold,” Lance said, purring.

Keith grinned, leaning up as far as he could, just a breath away from kissing him.

And then he expertly whipped out his blade, grabbing Lance’s head by the hair and turning it to the side, putting the tip of the blade against Lance’s throat.

“Who are you?” Keith snarled. “And what have you done with Lance?”

‘Lance’ looked alarmed at the threat.

“Keith? What are you doing? Have you lost your mind?” he asked, nervously glancing at the blade against his throat.

Keith bared his teeth. “One, Lance is never late for a date. He’s late for everything else, but never a date. Two, he’s never once called me ‘lover’. He prefers Spanish pet names and ‘babe’ or ‘sweetheart’. Three, even if it was super lame, he’d had bought _something_ here because he’s got next to zero self-control when it comes to these places. And lastly, he’d never, ever ask to have sex in the middle of a crowded place like this. He knows how private I am and he respects that. So, I’m going to ask one more time. Who. Are. You. And. What. Have. You. Done. With. Lance?”

The alien blinked, then looked disgusted. “I always hate the jobs with gross couples, but even the paladins of Voltron are like this? Ugh, how annoying.”

The alien morphed before Keith’s very eyes and the beautiful face they had chosen to imitate bubbled into a cheap imitation of his own.

The ‘not Keith’ smirked as the real one sucked in an alarmed hiss.

“I saw you making goo goo eyes at each other earlier, so when your pretty boyfriend went off on his own, I thought it’d be interesting to keep an eye on him. Little did I know he’d turn out to be a famous paladin of Voltron. I thought maybe I could get some money from the galra by capturing you both. But, it seems like I didn’t do the required homework,” the alien said, laughing. “Oh, what are you going to do? You say one wrong thing and anyone can sniff it on you. But, it is interesting how fast it was for you. I can usually fool people for at least an hour.”

Keith glared and pressed his blade harder. “You should’ve kept Lance’s face. I probably would have hesitated even knowing it was a trick. But, this face I have no problem slicing into. Where the hell is my boyfriend?”

The alien rolled their eyes and held up their hands. “Calm down, I’m already caught I’ve got no reason to keep your boyfriend hidden and you’re definitely not one I’m going to try and pull another fast one on. I’ll lead you to him.”

Keith kept a tight hold on their hand behind their back and the blade digging into their shoulder blade. They led him down a winding path of alleyways, coming to a stop next to a rundown looking shopfront with broken windows and a door off its hinges.

“Your little boy toy is in there,” the alien said, pointing.

Keith pushed the alien roughly into the shop. It was empty, save for a few broken crates and a wiggling Lance, tied up in just his boxer briefs and a gag in his mouth.

“Oh, gods, Lance!” Keith said, sighing with relief.

Lance whipped his head up and even gagged, unmistakably said Keith’s name. Keith threw the alien down to the ground, forgetting to care about being polite as the alien cried out in pain.

Keith knelt and pulled the gag out carefully and Lance grinned.

“Keith! Oh, thank the gods, I was so worried that creep was going to get you too!” he said, laughing.

Keith shook his head. “I can’t believe you were kidnapped on our day off. This is really getting old.”

Lance laughed self-deprecatingly. He glanced over and saw the alien wore Keith’s face, then he gasped and moved away from the real Keith.

“Wait, how do I know it’s you?” Lance said, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.

Keith chuckled. “ _Soy realmente yo, mi sirenito.”_

Lance sighed and grinned in relief. “Okay, that’s good enough for me. How did you know it wasn’t me?”

The alien sat up from the ground, groaning and holding their head. “Apparently he’s very attuned to your every move. He figured it out pretty much immediately. It was quite impressive, actually.”

Keith shrugged, slicing through Lance’s bonds and rubbing Lance’s wrists gently. “It was obvious. They called me ‘lover’ and then asked for a quickie down an alley.”

Lance laughed, shaking his head. “Oh, wow. ‘Lover’, really? That’s the best you got? And I would never disrespect you by asking for some dingy alleyway blowjob!”

Keith smirked. “That’s what I said.”

He turned to the alien, transforming his blade to its full form, grabbing them from off the ground by the hair. He brought the blade back up to the alien’s throat. They eyed the blade with much more fear than they had before, probably because they felt how furious Keith was.

“So, why don’t we talk about you stripping my boyfriend, hm?”

“And what is this?” Shiro asked.

The ‘not Keith’ laid on the ground of the castle-ship, beaten, bruised and naked. Shiro eyed the alien with confusion and vague disgust.

The real Keith eyed his new dagger with glee as Lance wore his new necklace. They were both very satisfied with how the day went and just shrugged at the question.

“Some things happened. Some aliens got beat up,” Lance said, shrugging and trying not to laugh too hard. “Don’t worry, I already made sure. This is the real Keith.”

Keith saluted, wrapping an arm around his real boyfriend.

“And this is the real Lance. I suggest we drop this asshole off in the middle of space.”

Lance laughed as they headed back to their room, admiring their gifts.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tattoos!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, yeah its been a little bit, but I got distracted by my other project

“Oh, my Mami is going to murder me,” Lance whined outside the tattoo parlor.

They found themselves stuck on a seedy planet that looked like some alien version of the ‘bad part of town’ that was everywhere in every city. Keith had been pulled to stand outside a shop that was lit with pictures and images of people getting tattooed.

“We don’t have to do this, you know?” Keith said, chuckling. “We can just…not.”

Lance rolled his eyes. “Nope, we’re doing this, samurai. I already committed back on Riveon, so there’s no way I’m going back on my word now.”

Keith raised a suspicious eyebrow. “I still think you’re going to wuss out. But, alright, let’s go in if you’re so sure.”

Lance breathed in, steeling himself. “Yep, alright. Let’s go.”

They walked in, alerting the alien woman behind the counter and she smiled, warmly at them.

“Ah, what can I do for you?” she asked, her warm disposition different than what they were expecting.

Lance laughed, nervously. “So, uh. We want some tattoos?”

She laughed, nodding. “Both of you? Do you want some couple tattoos?”

Lance shook his head. “No, no way. Couple tattoos are way bad luck.”

Keith shrugged. “I’ve got my own idea of what I want. This guy still hasn’t made up his mind.”

The woman nodded, gestured to them to go behind the counter with her. “I think I know something that will help.”

They followed her through a beaded curtain and came to find a bunch of aliens in chairs, getting tattooed. The artists were just as Lance imagined, covered in ink and with colored hair, leather clothes and intense expressions. He knew that was probably going to be the case, but it did add more anxiety.

Lance gulped, catching eyes with a big tattoo artist with a critical eye.

The woman actually lead them to him and Lance felt even more anxious.

“They want some advice on what to get,” she said, with no more explanation.

He had an open chair, so he just gestures to it. Lance glanced at Keith, nervously. Maybe this was getting to be a bad idea.

Keith seemed to read his expression, then sighed. “I can go first, if you want.”

Lance smiled, relieved. Keith chuckled and nodded, sitting in the chair.

The man just looked at him, eyes seemingly reading an intense book.

“Paladins of Voltron, eh?” he said, gruffly. “And you both are in love.”

Keith whipped his head around, alarmed. “Uh, yes? How do-,”

The man waved a dismissive hand. “I have a gift. And you do, too. A fellow artist, hm? That makes this easier.”

He brought out his gun, revving it up. Lance squeaked and stepped forward to stop him from doing anything else.

“But, wait, he never told you what he wanted!” Lance said.

The man glared at Lance. “Do you want me to do my job or not?”

Keith narrowed his eyes at the man’s tone, but shucked off his jacket. “Alright, you do what you want.”

Lance turned a shocked expression on his boyfriend. “What? You’re just gonna let this guy do whatever?”

Keith shrugged. “I don’t really care. Let’s see what he does.”

The man nodded, then pressed a few buttons on the machine that the gun is attached to. Keith pointed to his shoulder as he rolled up his sleeve to reveal his defined bicep.

“I guess here is good,” Keith said.

Lance whined. “Oh, not your beautiful arm! I love your arms!”

Keith rolled his eyes, but couldn’t keep a small smile off his face. Lance sighed and groaned when the gun hit Keith’s skin. The woman came back with a chair.

“Here. Sit. Let him do his work. You’ll like it, I promise,” she said, amused at Lance’s dramatics.

Lance pouted, but sat next to Keith.

“Does it hurt?” Lance asked after a few minutes of tattooing.

Keith cocked his head, considering the question. “I wouldn’t say hurt. More like…pressure.”

Lance frowned. “Maybe aliens got it down so that it won’t hurt as bad.”

The man chuckled. “You paladins are the aliens here.”

Lance narrowed his eyes at him. “Yeah, yeah I know. You better not be fucking up my boyfriend’s perfect arm.”

Keith and the man shared a look.

“He’s really protective of me,” Keith said, amused.

Lance crossed his arms and nodded. “And I hope you noted that ‘very trained paladin of Voltron’ bit before.”

The man rolled his eyes. “Well, I’m almost finished now. Then we’ll fuck up your pretty face next.”

Lance gasped. “So crude. And come on, what was it? Like a tiny thing? It’s only been like a tick.”

The man grinned. “Us aliens really perfected this so it doesn’t take near as long.”

Keith laughed at Lance’s banter with the artist. The man wiped Keith’s arm down with a towel. He touched it up a few times, then sprayed his work with a bottled spray.

“Done,” the man announced. “You can take a look in that mirror.”

The man pointed at a floor length mirror on the wall behind them, which Keith did. Lance came in behind him to see for himself, which he gaped.

“What the hell?” Lance breathed out in shock. “That’s…”

Keith grinned, flexing his arm to admire the work. “Exactly what I had in my head.”

It was a lion’s head, red and the mane a mass of flames that surrounded it. It was a masterpiece.

The man couldn’t help a smug grin. “When I work for another artist, I can’t help incorporating their own style.”

Lance shrugged. “Alright, fine. You’re good.”

Keith carefully unrolled his sleeve. “Time to fuck up your pretty face.”

Lance bit his lower lip, eyeing the chair, nervously. “Maybe I shouldn’t…”

Keith turned smug. “Told you. I knew you’d wuss out.”

He glared and felt his competitive spirit come to the surface. He stubbornly sat in the chair.

“You know what, do whatever you want, my man.”

The alien chuckled. “Alright, let’s see about you.”

He studied Lance for a while, then nodded.

“I know what to do, but this one goes on your back, so take off your shirt,” the man instructed, moving Lance up from the chair and converting it to lie back as a table. Lance reluctantly pulled off his shirt with a nervous glance at Keith.

“Um, how big is it?” Lance asked, anxiously.

The man waved a hand. “Sit. Let me do my job, damn it.”

Lance sighed, hesitantly lying on the chair-turned-table on his stomach. He rested his head in his arms and then skittishly jumped as the gun revved up. Keith laughed as he brought the other chair to sit at Lance’s head and he straddled it backwards.

“You could still back out. I won’t judge,” Keith said, smirking.

Lance glared. “Nope, it’s happening. Go for it.”

The gun hit his skin and there was no going back. He breathed through it carefully, so as not to bother him while he worked. Keith let his smirk turn to a comforting smile. He looked every once in a while at the emerging piece and each time he got more and more excited.

“I promise, _mi sirenito,_ you’re going to love it.”

Lance caught his eye and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, okay I trust you at least.”

The man scoffed. “I just did one of my best pieces on your boyfriend and you don’t trust me.”

“Yeah and a broken clock is right twice a day,” Lance said, smirking.

The man toweled off his back, then retouched a few places. He sprayed it done.

“Yeah I have no idea what that means, but I’m done with this,” the man said. “Go take a look you big strong paladin of Voltron.”

Lance stood from the table, then slowly turned around to look at the work on his back. He gasped in astonishment.

“I know those trees anywhere,” he said, feeling emotional. “Oh my gods, that’s Veradero.”

It was the beach, a painted sunset and it was from the perspective as though he were standing there from his own backyard. The colors swirled more artistically rather than realistically, but it added a measure of emotion and love.

Keith smiled, coming around and looking at the work himself. “It’s really great. I was honestly expecting something really intense or something. You always said you wanted badass tattoos.”

Lance chuckled, but breathed out in relief at what actually happened. “I like this better. Maybe I’m soft and emotional, but that’s…home.”

The man smiled. “There you go. See? Trust me, now?”

Lance pursed his lips and carefully putting his shirt back on. “Yeah, fine. Maybe you’re good.”

He snorted, snapping his towel at them. “Now go. Shoo. I have customers and you need to go pay.”

The counter lady smiled, knowingly.

“Did you get what you wanted?” she asked, eyebrow up.

The two glanced at each other and shrugged.

Keith grinned, taking out his wallet. “Yep, so how much?”

She waved her hand. “For the paladins of Voltron? No charge. Just if you want more, come back.”

Lance hummed, entwining Keith’s hand. “You know, I might actually want to.”

Keith smirked. “And you were so dramatic about it, too.”

They talked about some more ideas of tattoos as they walked out and excitedly theorized how angry their families would be. And proved it true when Shiro saw Keith’s tattoo and nearly broke the mug he held.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spanish, latent effects and "Te amo"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I know it's been a minute, but I really like how this turned out, like almost more than some of the chapters in the og fic

They sat in their usual spots on the sofa for Keith’s Spanish lesson. Lance absolutely adores every second of it, because it helps him remember his mother tongue and Keith takes it all very seriously.

They were in the middle of a lesson on verb conjugation.

“I know it gets pretty confusing to a non-native speaker. Especially one coming from English,” Lance says, when Keith gets frustrated with himself.

Keith muttered some more verbs in Spanish. “Okay, so this one. In the present tense it has - _lo_ at the end, right? So it’d be _yo hablo._ Or I speak. Then past tense it has an accented e. So it’d be _yo hablé?_ Or I spoke, right?”

Lance grinned, clapping. _“¡Exactamente! Muy bien, mi alumno!”_

Keith laughed, pushing Lance over. _“¡Comprendo.”_

Lance sighed, reveling in his boyfriend speaking his mother tongue. “I love it when you speak Spanish. Even though your pronunciation still sucks.”

Keith stuck out his tongue. “Hey! Learning a whole new language while in the middle of a war is really hard!”

Lance giggled as Keith pouted. “Surrounded by geniuses and fighting all the time yet _el español es lo que te patea el culo.”_

Keith glared. “Alright, I know _el culo_ means ass so you said something about Spanish and ass and I have a feeling that had to do with my ass.”

Lance laughed, loudly at that. “Who taught you _el culo?_ It definitely wasn’t me!”

Keith shrugged, crossing his arms. “I picked up a few words in Texas. A lot of Spanish speakers and a lot said that to me. Turns out most of them were threatening to kick my ass.”

Lance stopped laughing, then frowned. “Wait, so you actually looked it up?”

“I asked the foster mom at the time. She was the one that spoke Spanish. She hit me across the head with her towel when I said it,” Keith said, snickering at the memory.

Lance chuckled. “Ah, _como en casa.”_

Keith smirked. “Your mami hit you with a towel, too?”

Lance snorted, shaking his head. “No way. She had a shoe that she used to threaten us with. Never actually used it, though.”

Keith turned back to his vocabulary. “I want to learn this, properly. So I can meet her and speak to her in Spanish.”

Lance couldn’t help but melt at that, scooting over and showering his boyfriend in kisses.

“ _Mi alma, te amo mucho,”_ he said, quietly and choked with emotion.

Keith smiled at him, kind and open. “ _Te amo mucho también.”_

Every time Lance hears the Spanish words form in Keith’s mouth and with his gruff, deep voice, his stomach swoops like he did another dive in his lion. So much more when Keith tells him that he loves him.

In English, there’s only the one word: love. But, in Spanish, there is a lot of words that mean love. There is a word for platonic love, love for passion and love at first sight. There is a word for familial love and for sexuality.

But, _amar_ and _querer_ is something different, something more meaningful than just a simple English word like ‘love’. As ‘love’ is used in all kinds of contexts, each powerful in their own right, there can be confusion and misunderstanding if the true meaning isn’t conveyed.

There is never any confusion when someone says ‘ _te amo’._ That person is giving their entire heart to you when they say those words. Lance never believed he’d say it to someone, truthfully. It had too much underlying power and meaning. It gave too much away.

With Keith, though, he said it for the first time close to only a month into their relationship.

It had started out a normal day. Lance woke to a sleepy boyfriend and kissed him on the forehead, before heading to a shower.

The mission the day before had been difficult and he wanted to massage out any of the lingering bruises and soreness. He spent too long in the shower.

Keith was gone when he came back out, but he didn’t think too much of it. Keith was getting back into training, wanting to get his fitness back up to where it was before he got sick. He still felt weak at times and didn’t want to be a liability.

Lance kept telling him that was crazy, especially seeing as how he’d saved Lance’s life while still barely able to stand up without getting dizzy. Keith kept on insisting on pushing it.

He breezed through his morning routine and headed off to breakfast, hoping to get some space juice or water for Keith and checking in on him. He was still worried about Keith overworking himself.

Hunk was standing at the stove in the kitchen, frowning at the weird space food concoction he was trying to cook up.

“Hey, buddy ol’ pal. Watcha cooking?” Lance said, coming up to sit next to the stove and grinned at his best friend.

Hunk sighed, completely nonplussed by Lance’s appearance. “I wanted to get some kind of ramen noodle variant right, but the spices keep on turning up weird.”

Lance quirked an eyebrow. “Ramen noodle? Uh, why?”

Hunk smiled. “Keith mentioned that’s the only food he really misses from Earth and I thought I could try to do something special for him. He’s been working himself crazy lately.”

Lance melted at how pure and loving their whole team was. “Hunk, you’re the purest being in the universe, don’t you know that?”

Hunk blushed, waving a dismissive hand, but smiling wider nonetheless. “Oh, it’s really nothing, I mean. Keith’s been through a lot already and this whole plague thing happened and I don’t want him to think we’re not noticing how frustrated he is.”

Lance sighed, patting Hunk’s shoulder and sliding off the counter. “Yeah, it’s starting to worry me. He’s still not 100% from the virus and I don’t want him to hurt himself trying to work as hard as he did before.”

Pidge entered the kitchen, sniffing the air. “Is that…ramen?”

Hunk whipped around and gasped. “You could tell?”

She walked in and settled herself at a counter. “Uh, kind of? It’s not quite right, but it’s similar enough that I can tell. I ate a lot of that stuff, so even vaguely I can sniff it out.”

Hunk beamed, fist pumping. “Awesome! Just a few more tests and I think I can get it right.”

Lance laughed, then went to the fridge, pulling out a pouch of vitamin juice. “I’m going to check in on Keith. And probably drag him here, because I’m sure he hasn’t eaten, yet.”

They both waved him off and he went down the familiar path to the training deck, humming under his breath. He always liked watching Keith train, his hair was usually up and sometimes on the more intense days, he’d take his shirt off. Those were his favorite days.

He reached the training deck and chuckled at the sounds of metal-on-metal scraping. So predictable.

Lance opened the door and carefully walked in, hoping not to surprise Keith too much. Made that mistake once and Keith ended up on his back, painfully.

Keith was at it, hair up and shirt thrown off to the side. His pale skin gleamed under the florescent lights with sweat and he grunted as two gladiators had him on his knees. Both his bayard and his BOM blade was out and fighting.

Lance admired the view, sighing under his breath.

He was truly blessed to be the boyfriend of this god-in-a-man’s-form.

Keith hadn’t noticed Lance, so he kept going, finally taking advantage of the weak joints on the gladiators and throwing them off their rhythm. He swung the two swords expertly, as though they were connected.

But, soon enough, Lance noticed something was wrong.

Keith was slower than usual and occasionally would have to back up and cough into his arm. One time, he even got his legs swept out from under him, landing on his back with a dull thud. He didn’t call off the exercise even as the gladiators came after him.

“End training session!” Lance called out, just before the gladiators converged on him.

The robots disappeared and Keith was left huffing on the ground. His breathing sounded shallow and he couldn’t even cough hard enough.

Lance ran forward, kneeling next to him.

“Keith? Hey, are you okay?” he asked, checking him over for injuries.

Keith blinked at him, but then curled into himself, arms closing in on his chest. His breathing sounded loud and wheezing.

“I’m taking you to the med bay,” Lance said, without room for argument.

He hoisted Keith up, bridal-style and hurried off down the hallway. Keith just coughed some more, curling his head into Lance’s shoulder. He was sure the wetness he felt was actually tears instead of sweat.

This was horrifyingly familiar to Lance.

He burst into the med bay, cursing when he saw it was empty of people. He was counting on Coran being there.

He desperately just shoved Keith in a healing pod, hoping that would help, but had a sneaking suspicion that something else was going on.

Lance turned on the healing pod and waited a tick.

He saw diagnostics come up on the screen, so Keith had dangerously low oxygen levels and needed a ventilator.

He cursed again, louder this time and sprinted down the hallway to the bridge. He slammed his hand on the pad to open it and panted as his heartrate was pounding against his ribs.

“Lance? What’s wrong?” Allura asked, concerned.

“Please, something’s wrong. It’s Keith,” he panted out, looking at Coran mostly.

The man paled and as a group they all ran down the hallways and Lance pushed Coran to the front, coming to a stop in front of the healing pod.

“He collapsed and, uh, just started coughing and-and he wasn’t breathing right,” Lance tried to explain.

Coran immediately scrolled through the diagnostics, eyes widening when he figured out something.

“Get Shiro. Now.”

Allura was the one who ran off this time, Lance backing up and jumping on his heels nervously.

“What is it? What’s wrong with him? He can’t have that virus again, can he?” he babbled. “He was coughing and-and-,”

“Lance, I understand you’re concerned, but I need you to help me move Keith to a cot. I’ll explain when I’m done helping him.”

He shut up the instant Coran was completely stern and serious. It rarely ever happened.

Lance gulped, but did as the man said, catching Keith as he fell out of the pod and sweeping him into his arms. With the extra training he’d been doing with Keith, it wasn’t actually that much of a weight.

Lance carried him over and set him on a cot, not even waking him.

Coran sprang into action, moving Lance to stand back as he pushed a few buttons on a panel on the wall, then a ventilator mask fell from a panel next to it. Coran moved the mask onto Keith’s mouth, pushing a few more buttons.

He then brought out a scanning device, moving it to scan Keith’s chest and throat, humming as he did so.

Lance watched, helplessly with his entire heart seizing in terror.

The door then opened, Allura and Shiro coming through. The man paled at Keith’s condition and looked at Lance.

“What happened?” he asked, completely composed.

Lance relayed the story, Shiro frowning.

“That sounds like-,”

Coran clapped his hands. “Alright. Keith is stable and will be fine. But, I believe this is not over.”

Lance sighed with relief, but gained more concerned. “Okay. Why do you say that?”

Coran pulled a screen over, pointing to what seemed like a scan of Keith’s lungs.

“See, I believe the virus did more damage than we previously had thought. The virus had attacked the respiratory system, which we cured, but there are latent affects. It made Keith’s lungs much weaker and more likely to collapse,” he explained, pointing to some vague smudges on Keith’s scan.

Shiro’s expression darkened. “That means…this is permanent?”

Lance whipped around between them. “Wait, what do you mean…permanent? What’s permanent?”

Shiro flinched, pained eyes finding his. “Lance that means Keith has a chronic condition, now. He probably won’t ever be able to anything the same again.”

It hit him like a freight train.

“What kind of condition?” he asked, frightened eyes looking at Keith, pale and breathing through a ventilator mask.

Coran hummed. “Well, I don’t know of the human diagnosis, but I’m sure that this does have a name of its own. In summary, he will have to make sure not to overwork himself and we might have to modify his armor to be more receptive to his breathing problems.”

Shiro cringed. “Lance, this could affect him for the rest of his life. It sounds like an asthma attack.”

Lance was confused. “But, a lot of people have asthma. They can be fine.”

Coran nodded. “As long as he keeps himself from exercising too much and bringing on another attack. But, I’m worried seeing as how your lives as paladins can be so stressful and active, he can put too much stress on his lungs.”

Lance felt his entire life flip on its head. Keith? He was…too weak?

He fell back on the chair next to Keith’s bed, feeling his head swirl in panic.

“O-okay, so what-what do we do?” Lance stammered.

Coran sighed. “It’s up to Keith on whether he can take paladin duty. I’ll let you talk to him once he wakes up. He needs to stay on the ventilator until his oxygen levels come back up. I’m going to look in the medicine supplies to see if there is the medicine for this.”

“I’ll come with you,” Allura said, following him out.

Lance and Shiro were left in silence as they watched Keith.

“I…I never wanted Keith to go through what I did,” Shiro said, pained expression. He dragged his galra arm over his face. “I dealt with…so many people treating me like I was…broken. And I just, never wanted Keith to go through that. I wanted him to feel strong and-and in control of his own life.”

Lance turned to Keith, pale and hooked up to machines.

“My brother…has asthma and some other issues like that. I remember one time when I was a kid, my mother had to run out and get him from school. He had an attack. But I never saw it myself. I just saw him using his inhaler. And I never saw him like weak or anything. I just knew him as Markos. He was just my brother,” Lance said, voice small and vulnerable.

Shiro blinked at him. “I…I had a disease. A muscular dystrophy. I got weaker and weaker. And it got really hard to…stay normal to people. Keith, though. He never once thought of me like that.”

Lance knew this, but he nodded anyway.

“Keith is strong. He’s going to be fine,” Lance said. “He won’t give up being a paladin, it won’t happen. We’re just going to have to look out for him.”

When Keith woke up hours later, that was the first time Lance had said _‘te amo’_ to someone. It was a promise to love him and protect him for as long as Keith allowed.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro's birthday and *gasp* Adam...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lmao I think I'll still update this for the...two of you still reading

Keith was pacing his room and muttering to himself, when Lance walked back in from his mission. Lance put down his bags and shucked off his jacket.

“Um, _mi alma,_ what’s going on? Have you been fretting like this for the entire time I was gone?” he asked, blinking at Keith’s movements. “It was only three days. We’ve been separated way longer than that.”

Keith sighed with relief and hugged his boyfriend, tight.

“Oh thank the gods, I’m freaking out,” Keith said, stepping back. “I forgot. I forgot Shiro’s birthday. It’s tomorrow and I have absolutely nothing.”

Lance balked. “What? What do you mean? He’s your brother! How did you forget? Wait, I don’t actually remember celebrating his birthday. Why haven’t we celebrated it before?”

Keith groaned, scraping his fingers through his hair.

“Because it’s our thing _not_ to celebrate it until the day actually happens! And that’s only every four years!” Keith said, falling into their now much larger bed.

Lance blinked at him, completely bewildered. “Huh? Okay, now I’m really lost.”

Keith sighed, sitting up and accepting Lance in an easier position as long legs settled to straddle his hips.

“Shiro lost his whole family in an accident before he even met me, so he never really celebrated anything for a long time. And he said he didn’t really want to, but I was a kid and he always remembered my birthday. I asked him over and over what his birthday was and he finally told me that it was actually on leap day. February 29th.”

Lance hummed, understanding. “And that only happens…”

Keith nodded, grimacing. “Every four years. So to compromise, I told him I’d only give him a gift when it was a leap year. Which is…”

“This year,” Lance said, tutting. “Damn. What are you going to do?”

Keith groaned again, head falling to Lance’s shoulder.

“I don’t know! Where am I going to get a gift for the most humble man in the universe in just a few vargas?” he whined, pathetically.

Lance clicked his tongue, moving out of Keith’s embrace. “Alright, seems like I’m going to be the one to save the day, yet again. And I can’t even nap after a three-day mission. Typical. Let’s go.”

Keith knew that to ask questions at this point would only make Lance complain more, so he just took Lance’s offered hand, gratefully.

“We’re going to get the entire team on this. Luckily Shiro’s still off on that diplomatic mission and won’t be back until tonight, so that means we don’t have to operate in secrecy. That makes this a little easier.”

The actual mission-oriented tone of Lance both soothed and amused Keith.

“Lance, I just want to…make this as lowkey as possible. I don’t want to overwhelm him. He hates having the attention on him like this,” Keith said, a little nervous that Lance’s endearing, yet slightly overbearing party nature would take over.

Lance scoffed. “Come on, babe. Don’t you trust me?”

Keith hesitated too long, apparently because Lance gaped at him, offended.

“Of course I trust you! With like…almost everything…” Keith said, looking away.

Lance harrumphed, dropping Keith’s hand and crossing his arms. Keith pouted at the cold shoulder, something he’d been learning to do in the last two years they’d been together.

“ _Mi sirenito,_ it’s not like that! You just tend to get…a little excited about all this stuff. And Shiro’s a…not excitable man about himself,” Keith said, moving in front of Lance, trying to explain himself.

Lance narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, I _know_ that. We’ve been doing this for years now, I think I can figure out a little birthday party for the guy that’s led our whole team this entire time.”

Keith deflated. “Okay, I trust you, really. I swear. Uh, so what should we do?”

Lance grinned, proudly. “Well, first off is Hunk. We’re going to get him to cook Shiro’s favorite meals. Do you know what they are?”

Keith nodded. “He likes that space ramen and space pancakes.”

“Good,” Lance said, walking down the hallway again. “We just got that stuff at the space mall while we were out. Now, next is Allura. We’ve got to tell her to cancel any and all missions tomorrow, because it’s mandatory family time.”

Keith’s mouth twitched into a fond smile at that. “Okay, that sounds good. Then what?”

Lance held up a finger. “After that is Pidge. She needs to call in Matt and Shay as soon as possible. They need to be here. Oh! Maybe we can get Baraniss!”

Keith felt excitement at seeing their Rivan friend again, after so long apart.

“That’s not too many people?”

Lance scoffed, waving a dismissive hand. “As if. _Familia es familia, mi alma.”_

Keith chuckled. “Okay, you know I can’t argue in Spanish, yet.”

“Which, honestly, should be the first thing you learn. If you can’t argue in Spanish, then you’re totally not Hispanic,” Lance said, smirking.

“I’m _not_ Hispanic, though. It’s my second language,” Keith said, rolling his eyes. “And I’m learning it from you, the most romantic guy in the universe.”

Lance gasped, hand over chest and wrapped his arms around Keith’s neck. “Aw, _mi alma,_ that was so sweet! _Te amo mucho, cariño.”_

“See? I pretty much only know basic syntax and pet names,” Keith said, still grinning at the affection. “And I love you, too. Now, let’s get the planning started.”

They found Hunk in the kitchen and told him the situation. He beamed with excitement, bouncing on his heels.

“A birthday party? For Shiro? Hell yeah, I’m in!” he had said, already moving through the cabinets. “I’m like 90% sure I’ve got the ingredients for the cake we had the other day on that weird giant planet.”

Lance gaped. “Oh wow, I can’t believe I almost forgot the cake.”

Hunk barked a laugh. “Don’t worry, dude. Any food items you can leave to me. I’ve got you covered.”

“He likes the ramen and pancakes you make, if you don’t mind,” Keith added, nervous to be making Hunk do so much.

He just snapped his fingers into finger guns. “Already on it. This is going to be great.”

Lance whooped, already heading off to the next destination.

Allura was glad to have the missions delayed until the day after next, saying they all needed a break.

“Shiro has been through a lot as a paladin and I’m happy to help facilitate a celebration in his honor. We don’t appreciate what he does for us nearly enough,” she said, smiling kindly.

Coran bounded over, excited. “What shall we do? Maybe go to the fifth moon of Starbynes and party until the next quintant? I did that for my three hundred deca-pheob party and wow, was that a time.”

Keith’s eyebrows shot up and he waved his hands. “Oh, uh, no. No, I think Shiro’s probably just wanting something….uh, lowkey and easy. Just, you know. The team and some friends.”

“How about a serene planet? There’s one close by in the next system, which is only inhabited by the native wildlife and is used by most as a nice getaway. There’s many waterfall scenes and green pastures. Very calming,” Allura suggested, already turning to the console and punching in coordinates.

Lance grinned. “Yes, perfect.”

Pidge was apparently already calling in for Matt to come and didn’t even blink to add in Shay and Baraniss.

“Matt’s been badgering me to let him come to scream ‘happy birthday’ at Shiro for weeks,” she said, smirking at Keith. “And let me guess, you forgot.”

Keith clicked his tongue. “Shut up, you filthy gremlin.”

She cackled as they turned to walk off, then Keith stopped as the perfect gift idea struck.

“Actually, you think you can get in touch with your dad on Earth, too? There’s maybe someone else that could come,” Keith said, real nerves lighting up his chest.

Allura had let him take the red lion down to Earth through a wormhole, as inconspicuous as possible. They had already informed the populace of Voltron and the galra and the ten-thousand-year-old war ravaging the universe, but Keith wanted the least amount of spectacle.

“Keith Kogane, the red paladin of Voltron, calling for the Galaxy Garrison, requesting permission to land,” he said, with as much authority as he could muster. 

It was just a tick, before Sam Holt’s face popped up on screen.

“Keith Kogane, you are granted permission to land,” he said, smiling at the camera. “Here to check up on the progress of advancement?”

Keith smiled back, shrugging. “That and something else I need to look into. Could you maybe get Adam West?”

Sam looked surprised but nodded. “Yes, sure. He’s in the main hangar, in the middle of training the younger recruits. I’ll page him and tell him to wait there for you.”

Keith set down the red lion just outside the Garrison’s grounds, then sped across the remaining desert with his speeder.

Adam and Shiro had been on better terms, lately. But, Keith wanted to see if maybe having Adam out in space and seeing the team up close and personal, in their element, might make him more receptive of Shiro’s desire for trying again.

The Garrison loomed on the horizon and he had to fight the usual anxiety at being at his old school that kicked him out.

The main hangar operated at the far side of the campus and he saw small fighter jets zooming around in the sky, obviously young recruits because of how inexperienced they were of flying.

Keith finally came to the mouth of the hangar, twisting to stop the speeder.

Adam was standing under the opening, hand up to his face with a communicator in it.

“Cadet, that turn was completely inefficient. You wouldn’t get anywhere with that. Try it again and put more pressure on the gas and strength on the wheel. Don’t be afraid of the G’s. That’s what you sign up for with being a pilot.”

Keith’s mouth twitched into a fond smirk, Adam noticing and he winked.

“Oh and don’t forget to fly in formation. Follow your squadron’s leader. We appointed her for a reason,” he said, switching off the communicator and sighing.

“Rough squad?” Keith asked, stepping off the speeder and meeting Adam halfway.

Adam shrugged right before sweeping Keith up in a hug.

“This one reminds me of someone you know,” Adam said, chuckling. “He’s just like your big heavyweight.”

Keith snorted and stepped back. “Hunk’s way better than them, though.”

Adam nodded. “True. So, what can I help you with, Keith?”

Keith took a deep breath, running a hand through his hair. “So you probably know what tomorrow is…”

Adam nodded, biting the inside of his bottom lip. “Yeah. Should be Takashi’s actual birthday, right?”

Keith shrugged. “We’re planning a small…celebration. I was wondering…”

Adam sighed, looking away. “I don’t know, kiddo. That seems like something you should keep for, you know. People he’s still close to.”

Keith hurried to stop in front of him. “Adam, you know he’s dying for a second chance. And I still have to listen to him c _onstantly_ about how great you are and everything. I know it would really mean a lot to him if you came.”

Adam’s shoulders dropped and he scratched at his neck, something that Keith knew was a nervous habit of his.

“We’ve been on good terms, lately. But, Keith what happened was really…hard for me. On all kinds of levels. It still hurts,” he said, expression pained. “I thought the love of my life left me for space and then he _died._ And now, he’s not dead and he’s no longer dying from a disease and he’s leading this awesome intergalactic space force team and he lost his a _rm,_ I just….things are so different, now.”

Keith set his hands on Adam’s shoulders. “I know. It was really hard for me, too. But, my boyfriend and I got together and then immediately I got an alien plague and he got tortured and neither of us are the same. But, we got through it. We’re still getting through it. And I’ve been with Shiro this whole time and really, he’s just like he was back then. He’s still Shiro. And the one thing I _know_ about Shiro? Is that he loves you. A ridiculously gross amount.”

Adam blinked at him, then grinned, ruffling Keith’s hair, affectionately. “You’re really grown up, now. It’s kind of weirder to see than Shiro’s _missing arm.”_

Keith huffed, rolling his eyes. “The missing arm is barely something to write home about. It’s just robotic now. I’ve got fucking _asthma_.”

Adam’s head fell back in a laugh, then he shook his head. “Okay, alright. I’ll go with you to Takashi’s birthday. But, I’m not promising anything about us being together. That’s between me and him.”

Keith nodded, hugging him again, tightly. “Thanks, Adam. I know this will mean a lot to him.”

The birthday started as soon as Shiro woke up.

Keith ushered the man into the dining room, then the entire team, along with the guests, yelled out:

“Happy birthday!”

Shiro stepped back in shock, looking at Keith in alarm.

“You did this?” he asked, winded.

Keith shrugged. “I…had help. But, yeah. Kind of.”

Shiro blinked at everyone, at a loss for words. “What-how’d you get everyone here?”

Lance beamed and pointed to Pidge. “She’s got connections. But the main attraction hasn’t even been shown yet…”

Adam was conveniently hiding behind Matt and Coran, but he stepped forward, waving awkwardly.

“Hey there, Takashi. Happy birthday,” he said, smiling nervously.

Shiro blanched, jaw dropping. “A-adam? What-how…”

Adam snorted, pointing to Keith. “We raised a pretty convincing teenager.”

Keith rolled his eyes. “I’m twenty-one, now, thank you very much.”

Shiro turned to him, eyes misty. “Kiddo…you really did this for me?”

Keith shrugged, again. “Happy birthday?”

Shiro swept him up in a tight hug, which Keith immediately responded to.

The entire day, Shiro looked like he still didn’t believe that everything was going so well. They all headed down and set up a picnic on the planet Allura found, which was as beautiful and calming as she had described it. Adam actually stayed in Shiro’s orbit the entire time, never out of reach.

Pidge was the one that brought out the cake, with a smirk.

“I diagnose you…as baby,” she announced, gesturing to the seven candles.

Shiro sighed as the rest of the team laughed, heartily.

“I was waiting for the joke. It happens every time,” he said, shaking his head.

Pidge put up a finger. “By birthday standards, you are…only seven years old. And that makes you…”

Shiro nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I’m baby.”

Adam laughed the hardest at that one, having to hold onto Shiro’s shoulder to keep from falling over. Shiro couldn’t hold in a grin at his reaction.

Lance and Keith let them have some alone time after a few vargas of sitting and talking together, pulling Baraniss aside for a walk.

“So, what do you think of all this, hm?” Lance asked her, out of ear shot of everyone.

She hummed through her gills. “I believe I can see there is much love around the hero Shiro. It is very becoming of him.”

Keith smiled, entwining his fingers with Lance’s easily. “He’s a guy you want to support, I guess.”

She nodded, then looked at them, slyly. “So, you two have been coupled for a while, now. Are there maybe plans of sealing it?”

They both blinked at her, then Lance choked on his spit.

“Wait, you’re talking about getting married? Oh-uh,” Lance said, sputtering.

Keith’s heart flew up into his throat and he almost felt the usual start to an asthma attack.

“Um, well, I mean…” Keith stammered, face heating up.

Baraniss blinked her giant black eyes at them. “Do you not want to?”

Lance’s head whipped around. “What? No, of course!”

Keith froze. “Y-you do?”

Lance’s expression twitched through a few pained looks. “Yeah? Some-someday?”

Keith blinked at him, anxiously. “Really? It’s not…too…much to be married to me?”

Lance gaped at him. “No! Why would you think that? _I_ should be the one thinking that!”

Keith stopped their walking in alarm. “What? What are you talking about? I’m the annoying angsty orphan!”

Lance scoffed. “ _I’m_ the hopeless flirt that gets too excited about things, remember? Imagine a wedding with me.”

Keith reached up and cupped Lance’s cheeks. “Your wedding would be perfect.”

Lance’s lip quivered at that and his eyes misted over. “R-really?”

Baraniss watched all this with unimpressed eyes. “Honestly, you two. How did you ever expect to get along without me?”

They both laughed out loud and brought her over in a group hug.

Someday.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A stealth mission goes wrong
> 
> warning for asthma attack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a thought a while ago that it's rare that people write snowy planets in fanfics and this angsty monstrosity came out

“Lance, radio the fuck in right now or so help me…” Keith growled as he ran through the piles of snow that dotted the landscape.

The white ground hurt his eyes and he resisted the shivers down his spine as the wet cold permeated through his clothes. He panted against a tree, trying desperately to catch his breath.

The comms were silent.

“Lance!” he tried again, desperately. “You need to answer me!”

Keith fucking hated the cold and snow. It made him shiver and made him wet and it was a hassle to deal with.

Mostly it made him just think of Lance, alone and dying of hypothermia.

The comms were still silent.

Keith’s throat burned with the cold temperature and he started moving again.

“Please, gods, please, Lance!” he said, pleading.

His feet were starting to go numb from the cold in his boots. That was not a good sign.

Keith and Lance were cut off from the rest of the team for security reasons, so he had no way of asking for reinforcements. They had walked right into a trap when meeting a Galra informant and they ran off into the mountains. When Keith saw they were followed, he made the split-second decision to split up, yelling out things and knocking down twigs and leaving an obvious trail to try and lead the Galra after him.

Keith had successfully lost them in the woods, because he found out just how bad Galra were with cold temperatures.

Which turned out to be both a good thing and a bad thing for him.

He shivered again and fell back against a different tree, coughing through the cold. His throat obviously tightened and his chest fell into pain.

_Fuck, not again._

He fumbled through his belt, falling to his knees, coughing harder. He grasped at his inhaler and carefully took a hit.

His throat cleared up nearly instantly and he panted through the rest of the attack.

Keith wondered if he was going to die.

He’d been wondering that a lot more lately. The war had been getting harder and they had to make more difficult decisions.

With a much more panicky feeling, he wondered if he was ever going to see Lance again.

He jolted when he heard it.

The obvious sounds of someone trudging through the snow. He flattened himself against the tree trunk, trying to quiet his pants. He transformed his bayard in his hand to be a curved sword, better for the terrain.

“Ke-Keith….” He heard someone wheeze out, like they’d been yelling it for hours. “Keith!”

Keith scrambled up, with numb legs and feet. He turned around, searching through the alien trees. Just white and a headache.

“L-Lance?” he said, loudly. “Lance!”

He heard a raspy gasp and moving even harder through the snow. “Keith! Keith, where are you?”

“I’m here!” Keith yelled out, not even caring if it was another trap or trick. “I’m right here!”

He moved through the snow again, with more purpose.

“Lance! Lance, find me! I’m right here!” he yelled out again, focusing his ears to find any noises to figure out where Lance was.

“Keith!” he heard, much closer this time. It was coming from his left.

He whipped around and saw Lance, miraculously stumbling through the snow, his armor soaked through and he was shivering so hard that it looked painful.

Keith breathed out a relieved sigh, nearly falling to his knees as Lance sniffled and quickly moved to his side, grasping at his arm and wrapping one of his own around Keith’s back.

“Oh-oh my g-g-gods, Keith!” Lance said, tears running over. “A-a-are you o-o-okay?”

Keith collapsed fully into Lance’s embrace, head falling to his shoulder.

“Yeah,” he wheezed out, coughing some more. “Are you…okay?”

Lance panted, moving Keith’s head into his hands, looking him all over. He was still shivering and it made Keith’s head shake a little.

“Shit, y-y-your asthma? S-shit,” Lance stuttered out.

Keith couldn’t lie and just nodded. “You…cold?”

Lance coughed out a laugh and shrugged. “A-a-a little. B-but don’t w-w-worry. I f-found us a cave.”

Keith nearly cried at how good that sounded.

Lance got them barely back to the tiny cave he found before sundown. They both collapsed as soon as they stumbled in, exhausted.

He was so fucking cold and numb that he was starting to hurt in his joints from how hard he had been shivering.

“I…I have one of those…emergency kits,” Keith said, wheezing and coughing some more. “W-with the fake fire. A-and blankets.”

Lance whimpered. “O-oh thank f-f-fuck.”

It took a while for him to dig it out of Keith’s belt and assemble the warming kit. Coran had shown them all how to work with the emergency kits, which included a condensed glowing blue box that if unfurled, turned and shaken a few times, glowed bright and warm like a roaring fire.

Lance panted at the heat, feeling like it was the best thing he’d felt in years.

He then got to work on unfurling the condensed aluminum blankets, with warming and cooling features.

Lance helped Keith out of his armor first, carefully as his face scrunched in pain and his breathing got worse. As he unzipped the under suit and Keith hissed at the cold, coughing harder, he scrambled through the belt to search for his inhaler.

“I-I already used…the last of it,” Keith said, figuring out what Lance was doing.

Lance froze his movements, looking up in alarm.

“W-what?” he asked, in horror. “Fuck, K-Keith, what-what are we-,”

Keith just grimaced, shaking his head.

Lance’s world came crashing down.

His shaking hands came up to cup Keith’s cheeks. “No, no, no, baby, please…”

Keith’s eyes squeezed together and tears came out. His breathing got more labored.

“I-I’m s-sorry, Lance,” he wheezed out, coughing harder. “’S my…f-fault.”

Lance shook his head as he sucked in a shaky breath and tears ran down in face.

“I’m…I’m going to get you o-o-out of all this and-and it will b-be f-f-fine,” Lance said, moving to take off Keith’s boots and carefully rolling down his under suit, patient as Keith struggled to move his hips up and letting Lance free him completely of the suit. He was just left in his boxer briefs.

Keith’s breathing wheezed harder and Lance quickly wrapped him up with the blanket, setting it to warm him.

Lance then took off his own armor, as quickly as he could. He panted as his throat burned with the cold temperature and he immediately wrapped himself up in the other blanket.

The heat finally took off the edge from hours in the snow and wet, making Lance sigh.

He moved on to rifle through the emergency supplies, noting any medical instruments. He desperately looked for anything to help Keith’s asthma, but there wasn’t anything.

Lance cursed under his breath in Spanish.

“Nothing?” Keith asked, winded.

Lance’s hand clenched over the gauze in his hand.

“No. No inhaler, nothing.”

Keith’s head laid back against the cave wall, clutching the blanket around him, coughing a little. Lance deflated and sat himself down, crisscross.

“Keith…”

He looked up at Keith’s pained face.

“I’m…so sorry, Keith. I-I don’t know…I don’t know what to do,” he said, sniffling.

Keith shook his head. “Lance, I…there’s not…anything you can do.”

Lance started to shake again, this time in terror.

“I can…I can go out again. I can-I can try to…get help,” Lance said, already reaching for his armor.

Keith’s hand weakly grabbed his arm, stopping him.

“No. You’ll-you’ll die. I…it’s not worth it,” Keith said, so quiet and weak he was almost whispering.

Lance let out a sob, pathetically crawling to Keith’s side and cupping Keith’s face.

“Keith, I-what do I do?” he asked, helpless. “Please I-I can’t watch you…not-not again.”

Keith shallowly sighed, nuzzling his head into Lance’s palm.

“I’m so…sorry, love. I think I-I might have…have to go ahead of you…to turn back to…stardust,” Keith wheezed out, coughing a little.

Lance’s heart clenched and he sobbed again, finally descending into ugly crying, head hanging forward between them.

“Please, Lance,” Keith said, weakly.

Lance looked up. “What? What can I do to help?”

Keith’s mouth just twitched into the barest of smiles.

“Hold me?”

Lance arranged them so that Keith set his back against Lance’s chest and curled up between his legs. Lance wrapped Keith’s blanket over his bottom half and Lance’s around both their torsos.

Keith’s form settled on a fetal position look, Lance’s legs encasing them together. He wrapped his arms around Keith’s chest and shoulders as his head rested on Lance’s junction between his neck and shoulder.

They stayed like that, silent and shaking from fear and cold for a while. Keith’s breathing was shallow and wheezing. Lance could only imagine how much pain Keith actually was in.

“Keith, are you-are you hurting?” he whispered, scared.

He was silent for a moment, before nodding a little against Lance’s shoulder.

“Is it bad?”

Another little nod.

Lance took a long shuddering breath, just as a thought about it crossed his mind. He wondered what it was like to have to work at breathing.

“Can I-can I do anything?” he asked, desperately.

Keith took a few shallow breaths and then shook his head.

“Can I just…talk? Will it bother you?”

A small nod.

“Oh, uh, was that a yes to talking?”

Keith huffed against his neck, as though he were laughing. He nodded.

Lance gently ran his hand over Keith’s hair and sniffled.

“O-okay, well. Uh, you know I’ve never actually seen snow until this planet. I never really thought about it, because I love warm places and the beach. But, it’s really…pretty when we weren’t having to run into the mountains. But it’s really…cold, too,” he said, chuckling at the end.

Keith’s breathing stuttered again and he coughed a little. Lance’s arms tightened just slightly.

“Keith, what-how-,” he tried to ask, sniffling through the emotion.

Keith’s hand weakly reached and grasped at his bicep, squeezing.

“Keep…talking about snow.”

Lance sniffled against the surge of sorrow. He struggled against the sobs and he sucked in a breath.

“The-the snow…it looks like…remember the bondas? On Riveon? It looks like that to me. And it’s so white and sparkling…”

Lance kept talking about snow, oceans, Cuba, family and the team. He talked for maybe hours. The sun had set hours before and they heard the night noises and saw new flurries of snow settling on top of the layers of powder.

Keith’s breathing got worse and worse, ragged and wheezing.

Lance began panicking.

“Keith,” he said, voice cracking. “Keith, can you-can you still hear me?”

A weak nod against his chest.

Lance’s lip quivered as he sniffled again.

“What am I-what am I going to do without you?” he asked, voice hitching.

Lance felt water drip on his skin. Keith’s tears.

“I’m sorry,” Keith’s voice trembled.

Lance’s head fell forward onto the top of Keith’s, sobbing into his hair. He couldn’t think of something else to say.

So, he started to sing.

He chose the song carefully, seeing as how Keith now spoke Spanish almost fluently. He would understand the words. He let himself relax into it, even as his voice wasn’t strong at all. He didn’t sound good, insecure and tone wavering. But, he just wanted to make Keith better.

Keith kept crying on his chest, making Lance feel so much worse.

Lance couldn’t finish his song before he descended into sobs.

They both jumped at noises outside the cave. They sounded far off, but close enough that the person could find them if they wanted to.

“Lance! Keith! Where are you guys?” they heard Hunk yelling. “Please!”

Lance looked down at Keith as he weakly looked up, with shining violet eyes. He carefully moved Keith off of him, then settled him back against the cave wall again.

“I’m going to go get him, okay?” he said to Keith, wiping away his wet hair from his face.

Keith nodded, coughing. “Be-be careful.”

Lance quickly changed into his under suit, shivering at how wet and cold it still was. He made sure to wrap Keith up as much as he could in the blankets. He moved the glowing box to the entrance of the cave. He stumbled out into the snow.

“Hunk! Hunk we’re here! Hunk!” he yelled out as loudly as he could.

There were noises out in the distance, but with the dark and snow the only things visible.

“Lance! Keith!” he heard Hunk from the woods. “What-where?”

“Here!” Lance yelled out again. “Here, we’re here! Hunk! Here!”

He turned as Hunk came stumbling through the snow, from his right. Relief filled his system as Hunk struggled to his side.

“Hunk, thank fuck,” Lance said, hugging him tightly. “How did you-what?”

“You missed your check in nearly ten vargas ago. We-we came looking for you,” he said, breathing hard. “Jesus, it’s so cold.”

Lance pulled on his arm, towards the cave. “Come on, please tell me you brought an inhaler for Keith?”

Hunk’s eyes widened and he sighed, reaching into his belt. “I-Coran told me to bring it.”

Lance hurried to take it from his hand and fell back into the cave, immediately showing Keith.

“Hey, look, baby, come on…” he said, bringing up Keith’s wheezing face.

His eyes looked down at the inhaler, then weakly took it in his hand then took a hit. His eyes closed in relief, breathing much easier.

“Thank gods that works a lot faster than inhalers from Earth,” Lance said, head hanging forward.

“I can’t believe I’m just now an asthmatic nerd. Completely ruins my image,” Keith said, coughing a little, but still sounding much stronger.

Lance grinned and swept him up in a kiss.

When Keith got back to the castle and was in the med bay for recovery (again), he painted snowy mountains.

Lance never went on another mission without at least one inhaler in his belt.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A proposal?? Or maybe...TWO proposals???

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, here's this completely self-indulgent monstrosity for the two of you still reading

“I want to propose to Keith.”

The entire team was congregated in the lounge area by request of Lance and Shiro sat shocked at the announcement.

Lance was obviously very nervous about this, knee bouncing up and down and Shiro glanced to everyone else, just to see what they thought.

Pidge had the most gleeful face he’d ever seen.

“You don’t say….do you know when?” she asked, with a large shit-eating grin.

Shiro resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose in annoyance.

_Great, this is just great._

Lance nodded quickly. “During next week’s celebrations. After dinner during the fireworks.”

Hunk and Shiro exchanged a glance, both nearly grimacing and at the same time, almost laughing hysterically.

“Well, Lance…I’m glad that you’ve decided to take the next step. I’m sure Keith will be…very happy,” Shiro said, trying to restrain any emotion out of his voice.

Lance sighed with relief. “Are you sure? You don’t think it’s too soon?”

Allura hid some giggles behind her hand. “No, no I think this is the perfect time.”

Lance grinned, wide with ecstasy. “Awesome!”

“Uh, do you-do you have a ring?” Hunk asked, jittery.

Shiro knocked his knee against Hunk’s trying to shock him out of the anxiety.

“Yep, look!” Lance said, not noticing the interactions or the strange reactions between the team.

He pulled out a velvet box from his jacket, revealing a simple gold band.

“I thought about getting like really cool space rock rings, but honestly, Keith would probably never wear it, so I thought this was better. It’s actually his dad’s ring, that Krolia got for him. I asked her for it a while ago,” Lance said, smiling at the ring. “I’m just…so excited to really seal the deal, you know? We’ve been together for five years, now. I just think it’s time. And the war’s all won and everything, well except like Haggar but whatever, so you know…”

Shiro bit his tongue. “Lance, it looks great. I’m really happy for you guys.”

Lance beamed. “Thanks, man. I was sort of using this as a way to ask for your blessing, too. You’re probably the closest thing Keith has to a dad now, so it’s pretty important to me.”

Shiro grinned at him. “Of course, you have my blessing. I knew a long time ago that you two were basically made for each other.”

Lance surged forward, wrapping strong arms around Shiro’s neck. “Oh, thank you, thank you!”

Shiro chuckled, patting the man on the back. “Alright. I’ll…uh, make sure you both have the best seats in the house for the fireworks and are completely alone.”

Lance stepped back and fist pumped. “Awesome!”

When he practically skipped out of the lounge area, the team looked at each for a few ticks with exasperated and amused expressions.

Pidge’s shit-eating grin grew wider.

“So, who wants to plant some spy gear to see those idiots propose at the _same time_ to _each other?_ ” she asked, cackling.

Hunk sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “Of course, this would happen. How could we think that this would just be a cute romantic thing for just Keith to plan to propose to Lance? None of their moments ever turn out right.”

Allura giggled out loud. “Oh come on, this is just more romantic! They’re going to be preparing speeches and then pull out rings together! That’s so sweet!”

Shiro chuckled, shaking his head. “I have to call Adam about this. He’s going to love it.”

Adam sat there, laughing hysterically at the double news.

“Oh my gods…that’s so good. _Please_ get footage of that. I want like ten copies, I’ll send it to all the Garrison staff,” he said, between loud guffaws.

Shiro shook his head at his husband’s dramatics. “Love, I will _not_ do that. Keith was so nervous and excited about this. It’s bad enough they both told the team in supposed confidence.”

Adam wiped at his eyes, like an asshole. “Oh, I will never stop telling this story. Their whole lives I will bring this up at every Christmas.”

Shiro grinned. “Honestly? Yeah, me too.”

Adam gasped, immediately pulling out his communicator. “Holy shit, Matt is going to _flip.”_

“Don’t bother, Pidge already told him,” Shiro said. “He said, and I quote, ‘That’s the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. And the gayest.’”

Adam scoffed. “Yeah, right. He was best man at our wedding. _That_ was the gayest thing in the universe.”

“True,” Shiro said, shrugging. “But, he does have a point in the ‘proposing at the same time’ thing that gays keep on doing. When we don’t have a heteronormative expectation of the man proposing to the woman, we just keep on doing it at the same time.”

“Oh yeah? Then why did _I_ propose to you twice? Both times it was me,” Adam said, smirking.

Shiro pouted. “You know I still didn’t think you’d want to marry me. Either times. I thought it was selfish to propose, the first time because I was dying and the second because I didn’t deserve another chance.”

Adam sighed, nodding. “I know, love. Which you now know is just stupid. Both times.”

Shiro melted and blushed. “Yeah. Yeah I do.”

Adam leaned forward and they just stared at each other, taking in their spouse.

“How are things on Earth?”

Adam sighed. “Just great. The Garrison is now having to reintroduce all these aliens to society and the governments are trying to make it seem like they’re _not_ all here to invade us.”

“When are you coming back out here? I miss you,” Shiro asked, pouting a little.

Adam set his head in his hand and smiled, fondly. “I miss you, too, Takashi. Just a few more weeks, then you can come abduct me again. And we can both make fun of our unruly son and his cute little boyfriend.”

Shiro laughed.

The celebration was on planet New Altea, with the Altean colonists arranging the feast and fireworks.

The team had their own table, right under the giant statue of Voltron, all of them more than happy to wave and smile at the people all across the universe.

“I still feel really weird doing this,” Keith said, nervously. “Like, I get to everyone, we’re some big hero force, but I still just remember that I saw Pidge do a spit take with hot coffee in Hunk’s face the other day.”

Lance barked a laugh, still waving high and doing finger guns to the crowds.

“It’s not like all the generals at the Garrison or the presidents weren’t sometimes super lame or dumb,” Lance said, winking at the large crowd of fangirls and fanboys that had his color waving in the air. The entire group swooned together and Keith rolled his eyes.

“I guess so. It’s still just…so weird,” Keith said, cringing nervously at his own crowd of fangirls.

They all sat at the table, as the festivals began and Keith sighed in relief.

“You still don’t like this stuff?” Shiro asked, amused.

Keith shrugged. “Even though I’m a lot better since moving to Black, I’m still not great at diplomacy.”

Lance chuckled, leaning over and kissing his cheek, fondly. Keith couldn’t help blushing as this had to have been broadcasted over the universe and the crowd cheered.

“I think you’re a great leader. You deserve some recognition,” Lance said, proudly.

Keith’s mouth twitched into a smile and he inconspicuously pinched the box in his jacket pocket.

The dinner was full of laughter, family and love. They all reminisced about their travels as Voltron and before that, with talks about their families and childhoods.

“So, where’s Krolia?” Pidge asked at some point.

Keith smiled at the mention of his mother. “She’s leading the festival on New Daibazaal. She has Wolf, too.”

Lance rolled his eyes. “I still don’t know why you keep calling him that. His name’s Kosmo.”

“He’s _my_ teleporting space wolf and I call him Wolf,” Keith said, shrugging as though they’d been over that a thousand times. Which they had.

Lance laughed and shook his head. “You’re so weird.”

After the dinner was over, Keith was getting more and more anxious. He exchanged a glance with Shiro, who winked at him.

“Hey, you know I saw a great little part of the planet on the far side, where there isn’t a lot of people and would be great to see the fireworks, why don’t you two go and enjoy it?” Shiro said, pushing Keith and Lance in the direction of the red lion. “Get some time alone to unwind and the rest of us can handle the festivities from here?”

Lance lit up at the suggestion and tugged on Keith’s sleeve. “That sounds great, let’s go!”

Keith grinned at Shiro, thanking him subtly.

The entire team looked at each other with amusement.

The place Shiro had talked about was on the other side of the metropolitan city, on a hill that overlooked the valley the city was nestled in. The lights lit up the valley and the view reached over the far mountains and rivers. It looked incredible.

“Wow,” they breathed out together.

Lance was so glad for his team. The fact was that he would never have found something so perfect for a place to propose than this one.

He nervously ran his fingers over the velvet box in his pocket and mentally ran over what he was going to say, one last time.

“The fireworks should start in a few minutes,” Keith said, also sounding a little nervous. “Do…you want to sit or…”

“Yeah!” Lance said, obviously way too loud and too quickly that Keith looked at him in surprise. His face heated up in embarrassment and he cleared his throat. “Oh-uh, mmhmm yeah. Sounds-sounds good.”

_Damn it, Lance. Get it together._

He knew, obviously, that there was no way that Keith would reject him. That wasn’t what he was nervous about. He just wanted to get it all right. They’d been so unlucky in the romantic moments, due to war and plague and stuff.

Lance just wanted a perfect proposal.

They sat on the ground, hands held tightly between them and Lance was sure his palm was sweaty.

“Lance-,”

“Keith-,”

They looked at each other, sputtering.

“Oh uh, you-you go first…”

“No, it’s fine, you can go first, Keith…”

Keith took a deep breath, nodding. “Okay, uh, well, Lance. We’ve been together for a…pretty long time now. And we’ve finally gotten out of the war and-and things are settling down now. And I’ve wanted-wanted to ask you something for a really long time…”

Lance’s heart clenched as soon as the fireworks started and erupted the sky in bright colors, lighting up Keith’s face and making his indigo eyes sparkle.

Keith melted into a smile for him, arranging his legs so that he was kneeling on one leg, holding Lance’s hands.

“Wait, hold on, Keith-uh, is this what I-?” Lance stammered to ask, completely caught off guard. He quickly tried to figure out how he wanted to sit or stand or kneel and just ended up moving to sit on his knees, facing Keith.

Keith sucked in his lips and sputtered a nervous laugh. “Uh, yeah. I-well, I love you a lot. And ever since Riveon, I just knew that one day I wanted to marry you. And now I can really see us together…forever. So, Lance…. _¿Te casarías conmigo?”_

Lance let out a sharp sob at that, covering his mouth in shock when Keith actually pulled out a box from his jacket, a familiar pale green wood opened up to show a bright silver band, with small crystals covering it. It was incredible.

Lance stared and he started to nearly hyperventilate, and tears ran down his face.

“Oh-oh my gods, Keith. You-you just asked me to marry you in _Spanish a_ nd-and I don’t even, how-where did you get that? Oh, I ugh, I can’t believe this!”

Keith blinked and his smile wavered. “Uh, actually I got it from Riveon. I asked for help from Baraniss. The crystals are the sea salt and there’s this whole process with some metals and uh, I can _not_ tell if this is a good reaction or not…”

Lance’s head fell back and he squeezed his eyes shut.

“Damn it, I had-I had this whole thing _planned_ and I was going to say all this really good stuff about how we’re made for each other and-and we can have the rest of our lives for real and-just ugh, see?”

He scrambled to rip at his pockets and he pulled out the velvet box of his own, Keith stalling at the sight.

Lance let out a wet laugh and/or sob and opened the box.

“I was going to do it tonight, literally right now, too. I asked Krolia for this a while ago and it’s-,”

“It’s my dad’s…”

Keith sounded as though Lance had punched him in the gut. His eyes were wide and he sank down, legs losing strength apparently.

“We…both planned to propose and-and you got my dad’s w _edding ring_ and I…”

Lance cupped Keith’s cheeks and wiped as shocked tears ran down his face.

“Yeah. This is totally….”

Keith let out a crazed laugh. “Oh, this is so just like us, huh? Wow, I even told the team all about it and….”

Lance blinked at him, then gasped. “I did, too! Wait, so does that mean…?”

Keith groaned, then laughed even harder. “They totally all knew. They were probably just making fun of us at dinner the whole time. Gods damn it.”

Lance sniffed and wiped at his eyes, setting their foreheads together.

“And by the way, yes, you dumb angsty orphan boy. I will absolutely marry you.”

Keith grinned, grabbing the back of his neck and kissing him hard on the lips. Lance smiled into the kiss and peppered smaller kisses all over Keith’s face, tasting the salty tears and sweat.

They took turns putting on the rings on each of their ring fingers, turning to watch the rest of the fireworks show.

The red lion sent the feed of her paladins proposing to each other to the rest of the Voltron lions with an amused rumble.

Blue was overwhelmed with joy and excitement.

Black wanted nothing more than to show Shiro.

And Shiro was just resigned, knowing that he definitely had to show Adam, because it was fucking _hilarious_ and _adorable._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so I'm gonna need some audience participation here, because there's something about this sequel i've been writing for, but i don't know if i want to keep it here or maybe make it its own work  
> I kinda just kept writing into their married lives and gave them some kids, which got to be like....ten chapters long and kept going  
> Now: do people want the parenting-kids part of the story still here or do you want an entirely new fic centered around the family???

**Author's Note:**

> This one is pretty short, but don't worry we got more coming


End file.
